


Time After Time

by gwendy1



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Developing Relationship, Enthusiastic Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Getting Together, Groundhog Day, Hey There Sharpshooter (Lance Love) Bang 2019, M/M, Making Out, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 14:04:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20154808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwendy1/pseuds/gwendy1
Summary: Lance gets trapped in a time loop, and tries desperately to get the team to not only believe him, but help him stop it. Unfortunately, having to start all over every time the day repeats means he's not making a lot of progress. But when he starts focusing on using these daily do-overs to give himself an advantage romantically (*wink*), he enlists some unexpected help.[This is SHANCE (woohoo, give Shance a chance), with mentions of Lance'sfailedattempts at Allurance, Shallurance, and Shklance.]





	Time After Time

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the [Hey There Sharpshooter Lance Bang](https://lanceloveshipbang.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Please check out the art created to accompany this fic at the [art masterpost (warning for spoilers)](https://griffonskies.tumblr.com/post/186844838986/time-after-time) after reading the fic - a link will also be included below - and share some love/comments/kudos with the artist. Thank you, Dana ([griffonskies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/griffonskies)), for the awesome art! I love them both so much! _Thank you._
> 
> And thank you, Mey ([meynara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meynara/works)), for beta reading this fic and catching my many mistakes. Thank you so much for helping me polish this up. :)
> 
> Here’s a Shance Groundhog Day Fic! I have been so excited for months to get this out to you guys ASAP. Enjoy!

PART ONE

——

The chimes ring out in a pleasantly harmless melody and an automated voice - calm, feminine, and professional - informs Lance it’s time to wake and start the day. He folds back his blankets, bleary-eyed. The automatic alarm is both soothing and disorienting, giving Lance a strong feeling that he has just been woken at the end of a flight and a stewardess is thanking him for choosing their airline on the intercom. It may be time to get up and get to work on the day’s activities, but as he groggily turns to sit up and get out of bed, he’s confronted once again with the view out his window: the black void of space - specks of light so small and far they could never be mistaken for the morning sun. Lance stretches. Another day of space adventures it is, then.

He’s in the restroom of his assigned castle quarters, patting his face dry and checking his reflection in the mirror, when there’s a knock at his room door. “Yeah?” Lance shouts from the open bathroom. “Come in!”

The access panel beside the door beeps softly and the door swishes open, revealing Shiro. He’s still in his Altean pajamas - a tank and soft pants - and smiling a sheepish grin. “Can I borrow some toothpaste? I’m out.”

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” Lance tosses the cloth down and picks up his bottle of alien toothpaste - less minty, more fruity than human toothpaste - and holds it out to Shiro.

Shiro pads over, takes the bottle to squirt some onto his toothbrush, then hands it back to Lance. “Thanks.”

“Mmhm. Hey, actually,” Lance grabs an extra bottle he has from his cabinet of supplies. “Here. Take this one. We’ll put toothpaste on the list for the next supply run.”

Shiro smiles gratefully. “Thanks, Lance.”

Hunk is passing through the hall when he notices them. “Oh. Hey! You guys are up.” He peeks in through the open door. “I got up before the alarm again. I don’t know how you guys keep with the schedule. It’s too arbitrary. No change in light or way to distinguish morning from night. On top of the relativity of time in space and all. I was thinking of fiddling with the lights - y’know, installing some kind of day and night settings. What do you guys think? Yeah?”

Shiro nods. “I think it sounds like a great idea, Hunk.”

Lance grins. “Yeah, go for it.”

“Sweet.” Hunk pats the doorframe. “Hey, also— remember today’s our last Slav-free day for a while. We’re picking him up tomorrow. We gotta enjoy it.”

Shiro groans, scrunching his face up and scowling off into the distance. “Ugh. Slav.” He turns to Lance. “Got any extra-strength headache medicine in there?”

Lance laughs.

“Pidge suggested today be game day in the lounge,” Hunk offers.

Shiro perks up, wide-eyed with excitement. “I call paladin.”

Hunk and Lance groan, rolling their eyes.

——

Later, after breakfast, they gather in the lounge; but, unfortunately for Shiro, Monsters and Mana wouldn’t be until after lunch. They’re starting off with a card game. He huffs, “If we started the other game earlier, we could have a longer campaign. As it is, Keith still needs to be taught how to play.”

Pidge looks up, shaking her head. “Don’t pout. And Keith’ll get the hang of it. He flourishes when you dump him in the deep end.”

Keith quirks an eyebrow. “I do?”

Pidge chuckles and kicks Keith’s leg under the table.

**Beep! Beep! Beep!** The ship’s alarm system blares, sending the ship’s emergency lights flashing.

“Again? Really?” Lance scoffs, “I don’t know how many more of these alerts I can go through before I pull the plug on the metaphorical smoke alarm.” He reaches across towards the center of the table, pulling another card from the pile, and ignoring the warning system.

Hunk frowns. “Dude. Don’t do that. Just because the system’s a little sensitive doesn’t mean you should risk being caught without a functioning one.” He continues to study the cards in his hand, though. It’s undoubtedly another quantum field sending the sensors into a temporary frenzy as they pass through.

Pidge rolls her eyes. “It does kind of defeat the purpose of having a warning system if we just ignore it every time it goes off now.” She leans forward to plunk a card onto the discard pile, then pulls a new one from the deck, and smirks.

Shiro squints suspiciously at Pidge’s face, still trying to spot her tell. Is she bluffing? It’s hard not to second guess himself when playing against her. He plays a high card, just in case. Absently, he points out, “You guys are starting to remind me of Slav - only to the other extreme - always relying on the statistical unlikelihood of things. May I remind you we’re on an alien space castle? And someone should probably check it out this time too.”

Coran stares aghast at the card now at the top of the pile, huffs angrily, and slams his own cards down, before shoving them at the discard pile. “Well, I’m out.” He raises an eyebrow pointedly, throwing a dirty look Shiro’s way. “I might as well check that this latest quantum debris field hasn’t damaged the what’s-its.”

Just then, Allura enters, scowling at them all. “Am I the only one still checking these alerts?” She presses a button on a digi-pad tablet - silencing the alarms, resetting the system - and tosses it onto the table, disturbing Keith’s neatly organized pairs.

Coran, who has risen from his seat, flusters. “I was on my way. You just happened to beat me to it.” He sits back down.

Allura settles, taking a seat next to Pidge. She sighs. “Well, there have been a lot of them lately.” She turns to Pidge and Hunk. “Are you certain there’s no way to adjust the settings on the system?”

“Very certain.” Hunk and Pidge answer in harmony, having heard the complaint and addressed it before.

Lance, who was about to ask ‘how certain?’ - closes his partially open mouth.

Keith, on the other hand, is stubborn and annoyed - having lost a few of his cards to the air-sweeping commotion - and pushes the issue. “Why are we even hitting this many quantum fields? Can’t we plot a course around them?”

Shiro becomes animated, “Because they move in unpredictable patterns. One could even argue it’s evidence of quantum entanglement and ‘spooky action at a distance.’ We should really be taking measurements and analyzing the data.” He sighs, deflating a little. “Well, if we had time. The Voltron Coalition comes first.”

Lance grins. “Oh, yeah! Your thesis was on quantum mechanics, right?” he asks without thinking. And then it hits him. Lance cringes internally. _ Way to reveal your stalker-like attention. _ He would slap a palm over his reddening face if it didn’t bring more attention to himself. Instead he sits there trying to stave off his sudden, sweaty, nervous flush.

Hunk chortles as discreetly as he can into his hand propping his chin on the table.

Keith squints suspiciously at Lance.

Shiro looks at Lance, surprised. “Yeah! I worked hard on that thesis!” He wonders in puzzlement over just how Lance would know that; was Shiro really that popular at the Garrison? Did people gossip about him, or had he been oblivious to someone’s interest again? _ Don’t overthink this _ , Shiro chastises himself. _ Lance had still been an undergrad at the time, right? Keith had probably told him. _ Shiro smirks, “I’m the only one who reached post-grad, though, aren’t I? You guys got to skip out on all that.”

Lance laughs, admitting, “Yeah. We didn’t end up having to do a thesis paper. And I totally dodged having to do Professor Baker’s essay final! Sweet.”

Pidge looks up from her cards, shouts, “Hell yes!” and high-fives Lance. “I still don’t get why his class was part of the Aerospace Pilot Track.”

**Beep! Beep! Beep!**

“What?!” Pidge’s eyes go wide. “They’ve never been this close together before.”

Hunk meets her eyes, sharing a look of concern.

Shiro frowns, an ominous feeling coming over him. The slightest tremble runs through the ship, barely noticeable but for the sudden ripple of the liquid in his glass. He jumps, the adrenaline kicking in, “Everybody, take cover!” Lance startles, pulled to ground by Shiro; everybody else ducks on instinct, their training kicking in.

The ship jerks beneath them, jarring and tossing them. A loud crash and the whine of colliding metal rings out.

Lance clutches at the table support, hanging on.

Shiro, who has braced himself on the floor, glances at Keith and Pidge - both braced against the base of the seating across from him and Lance.

The shaking stops, and the sound of the calamitous crash fades away, leaving only the system’s siren.

Lance looks to Shiro, who seems to exhale with relief. Their section of the ship wasn’t breached, luckily. Just shaken up. He slowly and cautiously joins the others in getting up.

Coran jumps into action, sprinting for the bridge. “I’ll check the damage.”

Shiro waves Pidge and Hunk after him. “You two! Go help him!”

“On it!” Hunk shouts, already jogging with Pidge to follow Coran.

“We need to figure out if something attacked us,” Shiro says. He pats Keith on the shoulder. “Get to your lion. Stand by.” And Keith hops to, dashing off.

Allura has snatched up her digi-pad and is frantically combing through the sensor’s data. “There’s nothing on the scanners.” She frowns. “And there’s some confusing glitching of the data from the rear of the ship.” Looking at Shiro, she suggests, “We need to get a visual.”

Shiro nods. “Let’s suit up first.”

Lance agrees. “Yeah, who knows if the hull was breached,” he says grimly. Definitely don’t want to be sucked out into the vacuum of space to freeze while suffocating. One brush with that kind of death was enough, thank you very much! He still got chills from the time the castle was haunted, corrupted, whatever.

Getting suited up, Lance double checks it’s secure and airtight, then joins Shiro and Allura at the rear hall, ready to explore the site of the crash.

Weapons ready, they open the hatch to the rear storage section.

There’s no drop in air pressure. That’s good. No breach. And nothing jumps out at them. Even better.

Lance sighs, “Phew! Nothing amiss.” He relaxes his stance. “Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I, for one, am glad. We were due for a break, right? What say we go back and eat lunch while Pidge and Hunk deal with whatever sensor mumbo jumbo needs fixing.”

Allura frowns, “Something caused that turbulence, Lance. It wasn’t the sensors.”

“I know that!” Lance hunches defensively. “It was probably some space trash, though. It didn’t breach the hull. We’ll run the castle through a Ship Wash next time we see one. Easy peasy.”

Shiro chuckles, looking away from the data he’d pulled up on his gauntlet. “Sorry, Lance. But we should check the hull from the outside. Get a visual on the crash site.”

Raising his eyebrow, Lance taunts, “Double-teaming me, huh? I see how it is.” He winks at Shiro.

Shiro chokes on air, flustered at his innuendo, and shakes his head. He sets the hatch door they entered to airlock mode and walks over to the one built into the wall of the hull - their access to the outside of the ship. “Let’s go.” He presses the button to release the air from the room - equalizing pressure.

When he opens the door, Allura is ready, darting out with her weapon raised. “Cover me.” She scours the immediate area, swinging around to check their perimeter.

Normally Shiro would take point, but she’s gotten the better of him with her strength and shifting abilities enough times during training that he no longer worries. He’s confident in either one of them taking point now. Shiro springs out behind her - shield ready to give her cover.

Lance follows, his rifle up.

Allura and Shiro are still searching the area. But nothing attacks.

There’s no violent movement, just the drift of random bits of debris as it floats around— and is that a fast food cup? There’s a straw still sticking out of it.

“What the hell?” Lance squints, surprised.

Allura snatches a wrapper from its free floating through space. “Mojo’s? The freshest Karva rolls in the ‘verse?” She crumples it into a clenched fist and launches it out and away. “Did we truly just run into a drifting pile of space trash?” Allura scoffs in disgust.

“Uh, guys?” Shiro carefully makes his way to a large container that’s caught on one of the ship’s protruding engines. The engine looks okay - just scratched. But the sensor on the side is smashed to pieces. Shiro gets close enough to the container to look inside the open top. And, of course - it’s full of trash.

Lance reaches his side and peers in. “There’s fast food ships?” He raises an eyebrow and beams at Shiro.

Shiro frowns, plucking a plastic-y snack box from its trajectory - a half-eaten sandwich-shaped thing frozen inside - and shoves it back into the container. “Fast food ships that jettison loaded dumpsters of trash into space. Ugh.” He pulls on the lip of the dumpster-like box, trying to jostle it loose from the sidewall of the engine.

Lance mock-sternly puts a thumb under his chin and taps his foot. “Yeah, clearly they’ve never heard of recycling.”

Allura floats steadily over and huffs, pulling the box of trash free from the ship and revealing more of the damage done to the sensor. It sparks. She sighs, gently maneuvering the box with Shiro.

He seems reluctant to just push it off back into space. “Maybe we can incinerate it?”

“Guys?” Keith’s voice comes in on the comms. “What’s—“

Lance ignores the question and Shiro’s response, his attention caught by a red blinking light half-buried in the trash. He reaches in to uncover it. “Hey, what’s this?” He interrupts.

Shiro takes one look at it— “Shit!”— and swings between the box and the ship. “Let go of it.” He shouts and leans against the ship, lifts up his legs and kicks the box as hard as he can, launching it hard away from the ship. “Keith, we’ve got incoming!”

Just then, a giant wormhole opens up a short distance from their ship and two Galra fighter ships dart out followed by a Galra cruiser.

“Everybody to their lions!”

Shiro, Lance, and Allura rush to get back inside, close the outer hatch, and head to the main hall.

They can hear Keith fire on one of the Galra ships. “Damn!” He shouts. “They’re dodging me. I’ve never seen Galra fly like this.”

“That’s because they’re not Galra!” Coran shouts over the comms.

“Guys, their ship’s captain just sent a wave. It’s Unilu space pirates,” says Pidge. She meets them in the hall. “They’re here to rob us, but don’t worry. Coran says he’s got this handled. He was busy negotiating with them, last I saw.” Pidge smiles and shrugs.

Lance hesitates at the entrance to his lion chute. He looks over to Shiro. “Do we still form Voltron?”

Shiro pauses at his own chute entrance. “Not yet. Lance, go with Allura and Pidge back to the bridge. You guys help Coran with his plan. This might require some stealth. I’ll go give Keith some backup.”

Lance nods.

Shiro slides down his chute, off to join Keith and give them a little more leverage against these space pirates.

On the bridge, Allura dashes up to Coran, who has mysteriously gained an eyepatch and is haggling while intermittently shouting threats at the pirate ship’s captain on the holo-screen. Back and forth they go, fast-talking. She’s about to interject, but Hunk shakes his head.

He’s off to the side - conveniently out of camera range for what the Unilu captain must be seeing - and is doing something with their controls - hands dancing frantically on the keypad.

Another video message alert pops up on the screen. Hunk opens the link, keeping it to his holo-screen, but his hands continue darting around the buttons - still focused on his part in Coran’s plan. The video link connects and reveals their caller.

It’s Slav, who gets right to his point, oblivious to his bad timing. “Just wanted to make sure you remembered to pick me up tomorrow. In two percent of all realities, you forget me!”

Lance peers over Hunk’s shoulder, shushing him. “Now’s not a good time, Slav. We remember. We won’t forget to pick you up. Goodbye.”

Slav recoils, but recovers. He points at them. “Ooh. Touchy. I better see you in exactly fourteen vargas.”

Lance waves goodbye, reaches over, and closes the link.

“Thanks,” Hunk mutters, preoccupied with his hurried scrolling through settings menus. He leans back, “And that’s the last one.” Taking a deep breath, Hunk pauses, remarks “This should work,” and dramatically presses a button.

The castle’s outer surface lights up with flashing colorful lights.

Shiro’s lion flies up to settle beside Keith in the red lion. They hover there, facing off with the two fighter ships who have also settled to hovering across from them - locked in a standoff.

But when the castle starts lighting up, Shiro glances over, puzzled. “Why does the castle resemble a loud Christmas tree?”

Hunk casually answers him on comms. “Show of force.”

“No!” On-screen, the pirate captain is dismayed, biting his lip and beginning to sweat.

“Oh, yes. We have the Deluxe Laser Array 3000!” Coran intones dramatically. “I urge you to stand down, lest you incur our wrath.” He leans forward, hoping the camera captures the breadth of his intimidating figure. Coran winks and grins, baring his suspiciously sparkling teeth.

“Hmm,” the Unilu space pirate hems and haws, looking to his crew off-screen. “Alright, then.” He puffs himself up. “But we’d better not catch you in our corner of space again,” he blusters, “Or you might not have the upper hand next time.”

Coran growls, gripping the console desk. “Don’t push your luck! Now, get out of here.”

Pursing his lips, the Unilu captain gulps. He nods and closes the video link.

Outside, Shiro and Keith watch as the would-be thieve’s ships fly off and exit through another wormhole.

Lance hoots. “Alright!”

The team cheers.

Allura claps. “Good work, Coran.” She smiles, proud.

It’s mere minutes before Shiro and Keith return, joining them at the bridge.

“Nice job, Coran.” Shiro congratulates him. He basks in the view of empty space. “Only one shot fired and no loss of life.” Then he notices the dumpster box of trash as it floats into view and frowns. Shiro sighs. “Somebody vaporize that trash.”

“You got it, boss.” Pidge aims one of their laser cannons at it and fires.

Unfortunately, while the laser blast destroys most of it, one paper flier is sent into ricochet and the momentum sends it slapping to the windshield of the bridge. Vrepit Sal’s coming soon to the Mega Foods On-The-Go Ship, it proclaims.

Pidge groans. “Eh. Wipers. Where are the windshield wiper controls?”

Coran squints. “‘Wipers’? What are those?”

Keith answers, “They wipe your window clean.”

“Ah! You mean Squidgy Widgies! The control button’s right over there.”

——

Lance volunteers to help Pidge clean up the makeshift engineering workshop while Hunk has fun making dinner. A bunch of stuff spilled onto the floor in the turbulence; but Lance must have developed butterfingers or gotten some grease on his hands during the cleanup, because he accidentally knocks over some Olkarian tech himself. He partially catches it mid-air but fumbles, then picks it up.

“Whoops. Almost caught your Olkarian trinket thingy. But it was slippery. I hope it’s not broken.” Lance slouches with worry, examining the sleek Rubik’s cube-looking thing.

Pidge looks on as he tilts it to and fro to check it from every angle for any damage. “No, it looks the same,” she reassures him. “It’s fine. C’mon, let’s head to dinner. Hunk’s probably got it ready by now.”

——

Hunk clutches his hair. “Ehh,” he moans. Buries his face in his hands. He shakes it off and presents their meals. “My binding ingredient for the breading smelled a little different. I’m not a hundred percent sure on this one, guys. But fingers crossed! And the cutlets look like they turned out okay.”

Allura smiles encouragingly at him. “Nonsense, Hunk. I’m sure it will be as delicious as always.”

Around the table, they each start to dig in.

But, one by one, they pause, chewing thoughtfully.

Keith’s eyes widen. He grabs a napkin, and spits into it with a groan.

Lance and Pidge both just lean over and dump their mouthfuls right back onto the plate.

Hunk spills his own bite of food right back on the plate as well. He rubs his napkin over his tongue. “Oh god, it’s awful.”

Shiro grimaces, chewing, and stubbornly swallows it down. He washes it down quickly. “It’s not too bad, Hunk. I’ve had worse.”

“Really?” Keith pokes at it with a fork.

Hunk echoes him, disbelieving. “Really? It tastes like it’s gone bad.” He slumps. “The food storage power relay must have gotten jostled loose and caused the ingredients to spoil. I’ll have to take a look at it.”

Keith pitches in. “I’ll help you.”

“Aw, thanks, Keith.” Hunk smiles gratefully. Then, startled into confusion by the sounds of voracious eating, he looks across the table at Allura and Coran, who are busy devouring their meals with gusto. “What are you doing?” he asks, alarmed.

“I don’t know what you’re all complaining about.” Coran pauses to lick his lips. “This is delicious.”

“Mmm,” Allura agrees, not even looking up from her rapidly disappearing meal. “Your most delicious meal yet.”

The rest of the team goggles at them, shocked.

It’s pretty gross. Lance voices what they’re all thinking, “Eugh.”

Shiro, though, is frozen still and staring down at his plate. He starts to look vaguely green-tinged and groans, covering his mouth, before running from the room.

Hunk cringes with guilt. “Oh, boy.”

——

Lance gets ready for bed, moisturizing, and wiping away an errant drop that’s fallen onto his sleep shirt. He yawns and sighs, settling under the covers. Luckily, the sound of Shiro heaving has passed. Lance shakes his head. Poor Shiro.

A deep breath to clear away the stress of the day and a short tap of the lights control, then time becomes nebulous as Lance eases into sleep.

——

The chimes ring out and the voice speaks, just as smooth and professional as ever. It’s time to get started. Get a move on, Lance. He sighs. Too bad Alteans don’t believe in snooze buttons.

Stretching on his way to the small attached restroom, Lance wonders if he’ll have time to get some painkillers when they stop off to pick up Slav and make an emergency food supply run. They could all use some headache medicine with the day ahead. And Shiro certainly deserves it. Maybe they’ll have something to settle stomachs too.

Lance hurries up in getting ready. He should check in on Shiro before they get there. While busily brushing his teeth, Lance leans out his open bathroom door and reads the time on his holo-clock. Only one varga left before Slav boards the ship.

A knock sounds from his room door.

Lance spits and hastily rinses his mouth out. “Come on in!”

The access panel beside the door beeps softly and the door swishes open, revealing Shiro. He’s in his Altean pajamas, smiling a sheepish grin, and looking much healthier than he had the night before. “Can I borrow some toothpaste? I’m out.”

Lance blinks, baffled. “What? Did you lose the extra bottle I gave you?”

Shiro tilts his head in confusion. “You gave me an extra bottle?”

Lance stares dumbfounded at Shiro. “Yesterday! I gave you a whole bottle of this stuff,” he holds out his own bottle, offering it to Shiro, who squirts some onto his toothbrush and hands it back.

Shiro looks perplexed. “Are you sure?” He narrows his eyes. “Lance, are you getting enough sleep?”

“Me? What about you?” Lance squints in concern. “Are you still not feeling well?”

Bewildered, Shiro’s eyes widen. “‘Still’? I’ve been okay lately. Is there something I’m not remembering?”

Lance hesitates, starting to second guess himself when the usually-confident-Shiro looks worried. He huffs, but patiently explains. “Yeah, yesterday, I got out a whole new bottle of toothpaste for you.“ Lance reenacts it, opening his cabinet, “The last one before we have to—;” he trails off, eyes locked on the supplies inside in shock. Because right there, nestled where it used to be, is the last full unopened bottle of the fruity-tasting alien toothpaste the team uses. “Oh.”

Shiro rubs Lance on the shoulder. He smiles softly at him, so patient and quietly reassuring. “Hey, it’s okay. Maybe it was just a really vivid dream. In which case, it’s kinda nice that you dream about me.” He sounds bashful, but Lance is too distracted to be aware of it.

Lance grabs the extra bottle he has from his cabinet of supplies. “Here. We’ll get more on the supply run.” He tries to shake off whatever weirdness is playing tricks on his memory and smiles up at Shiro.

Hunk is passing through the hall when he notices them. “Oh. Hey! You guys are up.” He peeks in through the open door. “I got up before the alarm again. I don’t know how you guys keep with the schedule. It’s too arbitrary. No change in light or way to distinguish morning from night. On top of the relativity of time in space and all. I was thinking of fiddling with the lights - y’know, installing some kind of day and night settings. What do you guys think? Yeah?”

Shiro nods. “I think it sounds like a great idea, Hunk.”

Lance can’t speak. He stands there, stunned silent. With a feeling of deja vu so intense because he could swear this has already happened.

But maybe it’s just a pervasive feeling that’s lingering.

“Sweet.” Hunk pats the doorframe, not yet catching onto Lance’s odd behavior. “Hey, also— remember today’s our last Slav-free day for a while. We’re picking him up tomorrow. We gotta enjoy it.”

Shiro groans, scrunching his face up and scowling off into the distance. “Ugh. Slav.” He turns to Lance. “Got any extra-strength headache medicine in there?”

Lance laughs half-hysterically. What is going on? Is he going mad?

“Pidge suggested today be game day in the lounge,” Hunk offers.

Shiro perks up, wide-eyed with excitement. “I call paladin.”

Hunk groans, rolling his eyes.

Later, after a quick breakfast, Lance is tense and jumps to pull Coran aside and ask for his help to scan him with one of the health pods, while the others gather in the lounge.

Shiro throws a concerned glance their way, but joins the others, glad that Coran is there to help Lance.

——

“Well, the scan says you’re fine.” Coran taps his chin, satisfied with the results, but searching for any anomalies just in case.

Lance starts pacing. “Okay, so I didn’t sustain a head injury I don’t remember. Great! But there’s still something very wrong with me.”

**Beep! Beep! Beep!** The ship’s alarm system blares, sending the ship’s emergency lights flashing.

“Aaah!” Lance startles, harshly reminded of his own version of the day’s events.

Coran frowns at the alert, but moments later it’s silenced, reset by one of the other team members.

Lance turns to Coran, vibrating with urgency. “Watch, the ship’s warning system is about to go off again. Any moment now. And it’ll shake the ship this time.”

Coran scrunches his forehead in doubt. “It’s highly unlikely to go through quantum fields so close together. And they’ve never been known to cause any turbulence.” He pats Lance on the head. “You might simply have a small case of space madness.” He beams. “You’ll get through this. You’ve got your friends here for you. I’m sure they can help. And, if not, we can take you to see an Olkarian specialist. They’re great at that kind of thing!”

**Beep! Beep! Beep!**

The ship jars under their feet.

“Aaah!” Coran shouts, ducking under the nearest support of the castle and clinging for dear life.

Lance plops disheartened to the ground and sits there.

When the ship stops shaking, Coran lurches upright. “What was that?” He gasps. “Can you see the future?”

Lance sighs. “You’re needed on the bridge.”

Coran considers it, then rushes off.

From then on, things proceed as they had - with some minor differences due to Lance sitting out most of it, stuck in a daze.

The rest of the team frowns worriedly over him, and determine they will try to get him some help, but it will have to come tomorrow. There aren’t enough vargas left in the day to get him to a specialist before bed.

So Lance goes to his room, does his nightly routine, and settles in bed, feeling faintly reassured that he’ll be seeing someone who can fix it the next day.

But a nagging fear tugs at him.

He gets up, grabs his toothpaste, and smears a message onto the mirror. IS IT GROUNDHOG DAY?, it asks in giant looming print.

Then, Lance washes his hands, takes an agitated attempt at a deep breath, and goes to sleep.

——

PART TWO

——

He wakes desperately hopeful the message will still be there, but the fear is firmly lodged in his gut - an ominous hunch.

Lance leaps from his bed and rushes into the bathroom - only to find a blank mirror. It’s gone. The message he left himself is gone, as if it were never there. Fear confirmed, Lance moans and grips at his hair, tight with panic. He paces back and forth before his sink.

A knock sounds at the door.

Lance stops, turns, and stares desperately at himself in the mirror. Deep breath. “Yeah?”

“Hey, Lance. If you’ve got a minute, I was hoping I could borrow some toothpaste.” Shiro calls out, muffled through the door.

And Lance realizes he hasn’t told him to come in this time. It’s a minor difference. But clearly, there’s some wiggle room in how this day can play out.

“Lance?”

He startles, still dazed. “Um, yeah.” Lance snatches up the extra toothpaste and heads to the door. He hits the button to open it.

Shiro looks in at him, concerned. “You alright?”

Lance stares at him, uncharacteristically serious. “Not really.” He hands him the toothpaste. “Here.” Lance waves at his own sleepwear. “Let me get ready.” He spots Hunk coming their way through the hall. Meeting Shiro’s worried eyes, Lance says, “I’ll meet you guys for breakfast. I’ll explain there.”

Brows furrowed, Shiro nods. “Okay. We’ll be there.”

——

Pidge frowns, sympathetic but clear in her hypothesis. “Sorry, Lance. I hate to say it, but I think the stress is getting to you.” She points out, “There would be anomalies in the sensor data. And we’d all be experiencing it if we were trapped in a time loop.”

Allura concurs. “When Coran and I were caught in a time loop, we were both aware of it.” She grimaces, gently adding, “And what we experienced was quite different from what you’ve described.”

“I mean, I didn’t think I was that stressed.” Lance sighs, runs his hands through his hair, and rubs the back of his neck. He wants to believe them. Stress would be easier to understand, at least.

Hunk jumps in to reassure him. “But there’s no shame in needing a break, buddy! Goodness knows the monotony of space travel on top of the stress of risking our lives while missing our families,” he pauses, solemn, “—well, it’s wearing on all of us.”

Keith shuffles, uncomfortable, but throws a pinched look of concern Hunk’s way.

**Beep! Beep! Beep!** The ship’s alarm system blares, sending the ship’s emergency lights flashing.

Allura grumbles, getting to her feet. “I’ll get it.”

Pidge smiles sadly in commiseration. “I’ll go with you. Who knows? Maybe it’s not another quantum field setting off the sensors.” She rolls her eyes, failing to convince even herself.

Shiro breathes deeply and puts a fortifying arm around Lance, pivoting them back to the conversation at hand. “We’ll get through this, Lance.” He smiles and assures him, “You’re not alone.”

Lance smirks at him with soft gratitude. “Not alone in having a psychological breakdown?”

“Disorientation, stress,” Shiro lists, squeezing Lance’s shoulder, “the physical demands this mission is putting us under, the injuries?” He pauses, silently acknowledging the heavy cost they’ve paid and could continue to pay in an ambitious effort to save the universe. “You think I haven’t broken down a few times from the weight of everything? None of us expected to deal with any of this. I can sympathize with struggling to keep yourself together.”

Touched by his words, Lance brings a hand up to clasp Shiro’s prosthetic fingers in his.

Shiro continues, “And I probably understand more than most here the necessity of giving yourself a break. Saving the universe isn’t light work. It’s okay to lean on the rest of the team while you try to decompress a little.”

Coran pipes in to point out, “And we can stop over at Olkarion soon. Last I saw, they had developed a whole medical specialty devoted to the treatment of space madness!” Unwitting of how his words echo those of the earlier iteration of the day.

Lance hopes desperately it’s a coincidence.

But alas— the ship starts to ever so gently rumble with turbulence.

Shiro frowns.

**Beep! Beep! Beep!** The sirens ring out with alarm.

“Get down!” Shiro shouts, but he’s a little off this time, as they are all thrown violently to the floor when the ship jerks beneath them.

Shiro’s wide-eyed, about to dash off to investigate, ready to defend them and call out strategy in the event of confrontation.

Hunk and Keith, who are closer to the door, both rush out to figure out what the danger is.

But Lance knows. Deep in his bones. It’s not affecting the others for some reason, but this is too much to be coincidence. “Shiro!” He shouts, grabbing both his shoulders and attention before he can go. Lance looks at him, pleading. “If you knew it was really a Groundhog Day situation, what would you do?”

Shiro halts, stymied, but considers Lance before him. He immediately catches onto the pop culture reference, but Lance was dead serious when he delivered the question. Shiro looks into his earnest face and tries to be present in the moment with him, answering, “If I were trapped, but anything goes? I’d try to be happy.”

Lance tears up, amazed with quiet awe at the revelation. “Anything goes,” he realizes. No consequences. At least until he figures out how to stop the loop. He beams. And utters matter-of-factly, “Coran and Hunk are needed at the bridge. It’s Unilu space pirates.”

Thereafter, the day wraps up fairly similar to previous iterations, with only Shiro and possibly Coran considering that the team’s assurances of giving him a break soon at an Olkarian med spa would be for naught.

Lance gets ready for bed while he mutters to himself, wondering at the potential, “Anything goes…” He lays down and shuts off the lights. Lance smirks softly. “Well, it probably can’t hurt to try the Phil Connors approach.”

——

First of all, he stops telling everyone what’s happening. The rest of the team have got the day’s events pretty well in hand. Lance can take the time to focus on what matters to him.

If only he can get the timing right.

“Hey, Allura,” Lance leans beside her, striking his most movie-star pose, and winks. “How are you this fine day?” He smiles invitingly.

Allura blinks and arches her brow at Lance. “A bit busy, Lance.” She continues studying the digi-pad in her hand, while walking towards the bridge.

Lance pouts. “Nothing? Okay…”

—— 

Take #23. 

Lance braces himself, not only riding out the turbulence with ease, but catching a nearby Valyroxy plant that was in the midst of falling. One of Allura’s favorite plants. He beams at Allura and waggles his brow. 

Allura smiles, bemused. “Thank you, Lance.” She takes the plant from him and sets it back on the shelf. And frowns, puzzled, at Lance’s expectant face.

She turns to the rest of the team, who are already rushing to figure out the cause of the turbulence, and jumps in to help.

——

Take #35.

Lance pitches in this time. And ends up alone with Allura and Shiro again, investigating the cause of the turbulence.

He joins Shiro and Allura at the rear hall, ready to explore the site of the crash.

Weapons ready, they open the hatch to the rear storage section.

No drop in air pressure. No breach. Nothing jumps out at them. It’s all fine, of course, everything playing out as it had previously.

Lance relaxes his stance. “Well, we were due for a break, right?” And he eases into his suggestion, as convincing as can be, “What say we go back and enjoy a quickie threesome while Pidge and Hunk deal with the sensor that needs fixing.”

Shiro chokes on air, flustered at his innuendo. “Lance!”

Allura scowls at him with disgust. Through gritted teeth, she says, “Something caused the turbulence, Lance. It wasn’t the sensors. Do try to be serious for once.”

“I know!” Lance hunches defensively. “But it didn’t breach the hull. It was undoubtedly some space trash.”

Shiro looks away from the data he’d pulled up on his gauntlet. “Sorry, Lance. But we should check the hull from the outside. Get a visual on the crash site.”

Lance taunts, “Double-teaming me, huh? I see how it is.” He winks at Shiro. But it’s half-hearted. He’s frustrated with the lack of traction any of his romantic propositioning is getting him. How did Phil Conners do this?

Shiro shakes his head at Lance’s flirtations. He sets the hatch door they entered to airlock mode and walks over to the one built into the wall of the hull - their access to the outside of the ship. “Let’s go.” He presses the button to release the air from the room - equalizing pressure.

When he opens the door, Allura is ready, darting out with her weapon raised. “Cover me.” She scours the immediate area, swinging around to check their perimeter.

Normally Shiro would take point, but she’s gotten the better of him with her strength and shifting abilities enough times during training that he no longer worries. He’s confident in either one of them taking point now. Shiro springs out behind her - shield ready to give her cover.

Lance sighs and follows, his rifle up, even though he knows it’s just tracker-rigged trash.

——

Take #36.

Okay, so pick-up lines and come-ons aren’t working. That’s fine. Lance can still do this, he’s sure of it. He just needs to show off his heroic side and get himself an opening to impress her. Then, he can ask Allura to a private dinner - just the two of them.

“Never fear, Loverboy Lance has got this.” Lance flashes his sparkliest smile at Allura and winks. He cracks his knuckles and strides ahead of Coran to the bridge.

Activating the vid screen, he stares right at the scowling space pirate and puffs up his chest while attempting to match his deep frown of displeasure.

The Unilu captain just squints at him in response and starts to smirk. “Is that a child?” He laughs and gestures for one of his crew to look at the screen.

The lanky crewman scratches at the band of their eye patch and leans in. “Maybe a female?”

Lance squawks. “Excuse you?! I’m an adult male, thank you very much!” He slams his fist on the console and leans in. “And you’re not robbing this vessel.”

“Adult male? Where’s your mustache?” The pirate guffaws. “And how did you know we’re here to rob you?" 

The captain shakes his head. “So, our reputation precedes us.” He leans back in his chair arrogantly. “Then you know not to trifle with us. We will be robbing your ship. Stand your crew down and we may let you keep your vessel.”

Lance huffs with full bravado, “I will not stand my crew down. What’s to stop me from just firing on your ship?” He waves discreetly to Hunk and Coran who are fretting out of sight of the camera. “In fact, I think what I should do is demonstrate a show of force,” he says, intoning particular significance near the end. Lance flashes his fist open and closed a few times, trying to signal. But Hunk and Coran just look puzzled, while Allura looks like she’s about to storm up and take command of the situation from him. Right. Not working. Okay.

Thinking on his feet, Lance declares with dramatic showmanship, “It’s time to form Voltron!”

Coran covers his face with his hands in dismay.

Keith can be heard snorting over the comms.

Hunk whisper-shouts at him, “What are you doing? We’re not all in our lions yet!”

“Voltron?” The space pirates on screen burst into laughter. “You’re going to scare us with bedtime stories?”

Indignant, Lance cries out, “It’s true. What do you think that red lion is a part of?”

The Unilu captain narrows his eyes at another screen at his console. He turns back to Lance and raises a bushy eyebrow. “A lion? I thought that looked more like a yupper shaped ship.”

His crewman beside him coos, “Aw, I love yuppers. We should steal that ship.”

“You’re not hearing me.” Lance glares at the pirate captain. “I am Lance McClain, one of only several humans chosen as paladins of Voltron, and I am warning you to stand down.”

The levity among the Unilu pirates drops. “Did he just say ‘humans’?” One gasps.

A growl beginning to rumble out of him, the pirate captain rages. “As in the humans that killed my beloved Rovina?” He slides a control panel up on his console and slams a button.

Lance has only half a second to hear the roar of the explosion before he’s thrown into the air and everything goes dark.

——

Take #37.

He wakes up gasping and spends the rest of the day’s iteration in a daze, shaky and grateful that they woke up at all.

——

Take #38.

He hears her voice before he sees her. Rounding the corner, Lance only realizes he has interrupted a private moment when he catches onto what she’s saying.

“But how could I ever be sure we can trust him?”

Lance ducks back behind the corner.

The mice squeak and titter, making their case.

Allura sighs, wistful. “It would be nice to hear him out. He has such a nice voice.” She gazes longingly into the distance. “And that hair! I wonder if he’d let me braid it…” Allura shakes her head, warring with herself. “He may be half-Altean, but Prince Lotor will always be half-Galra.” She looks pointedly at the mice gathered before her. “I would need proof that he is trustworthy and genuine.”

They chatter excitedly, several pushing one forward to make a suggestion. But one at the end twitches, sharply scolding them into silence. The mouse perks up an ear, turning to where Lance is.

Oops. Caught peeking around the corner, Lance sheepishly edges forward.

“Lance?” Allura questions, wide-eyed and faintly mortified.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt a private moment.” Lance tilts his head down, ashamed. 

“Why are you here?” In her private wing of the castle? Allura purses her lips in concern.

“I, ah— I was just coming to let you know that lunch is almost ready?” He shuffles in place, before admitting, “I was hoping we could have a moment alone to talk.” But he frowns sadly with resignation. 

Lance silently mourns the possibility of Allura’s romantic feelings being directed at him. She has genuine feelings for Lotor. And he should respect that. Respect her. She’s always been a good teammate, a good friend. “I overheard you talking, though,” he says. Maybe it’s time he started being a better friend to her. Without ulterior motives. “And I think that you should give Lotor the chance to prove himself. If he’s really up to something, it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out.” He smiles. “You’ve got a lot of friends here willing to help you find out.”

Allura’s soft smile grows and she gazes up at him warmly, touched to have his support. “Thank you, Lance. That means a lot.”

The mice start squeaking again, enthusiastic.

“Oh!” Allura grins. “You’d be willing to spy on Lotor?” She giggles.

Lance laughs. “Well, that’s a good way to see how he really is. Catch him when he thinks no one is looking.” It had certainly helped open his own eyes to Allura’s true feelings. He smiles, bemused and happy that Allura is happy.

Then again, there’s a small part of him that’s not surprised. He was kind of expecting it. Allura had always kinda been ‘Allura the Unattainable’ in the back of his mind. It’s not like he ever seriously expected to stand a chance with an alien princess.

——

From then on, he lets things play out as they normally would. But dedicates himself to being as helpful as he can be. Just trying to do the right thing. He may be trapped, but he can try to help his friends and team who aren’t stuck. Hopefully, he’ll figure it out someday and stop the vicious cycle. But he can try to hang in there. And pay attention. And maybe, just maybe, his team can help him out of this mess.

Before dinner, he helps Hunk make the preparations and absently makes the excuse he usually does. “Oh yeah, it was at that swap moon. The guy clearly said that while Alteans love it, it’s pretty much inedible to other species. Especially humans. Something about our bodies’ constitutions not being able to handle it.” It had only taken a couple of iterations of the disastrous dinner and failed attempts at fixing the power to the food storage before Lance started just convincing Hunk to adjust the meal. This way, it’s palatable for everyone.

Maybe someday the day would stop repeating, and if it ever did, Lance would tell him the real problem, but as it is, there’s just not enough time to fix it in time for dinner.

When it’s time to eat, Lance looks around and realizes now that he’s not focused on getting Allura’s interest, he can start to notice what’s going on with the rest of the team. Like Shiro, who is far more attentive to Lance than he had realized.

Had Shiro always paid this much attention to Lance? Or is he picking up on some clue Lance has unintentionally dropped that something isn’t right?

Perhaps Shiro thinks he’s being discreet, but he’s studying Lance across the table pretty intently. And the scrutiny is starting to make Lance blush.

Because while he may have played up a loud and largely shallow interest in Allura, he has certainly never been oblivious to Shiro. Takashi Shirogane is ridiculously attractive and Lance is definitely attracted to him. Who is he kidding? He’s jerked off to the thought of him at least a hundred times.

But he’s always held back on that interest.

Because Lance can admit to himself that he’s way too insecure to reveal the depth of his feelings for Shiro. He’s afraid of Shiro really seeing him and finding him wanting.

Because, deep down, Lance feels like he’s not good enough for his hero.

——

After dinner, Shiro confronts him when they’re alone.

“Hey, Lance. Is everything okay?” Shiro is concerned. “You were pretty quiet today.”

“Yeah, uh, I just—” Lance pauses. Considers Shiro. “I’m just stuck in a time loop.” He smirks.

Shiro double-takes. “What?”

“I know. This is like way past the 30th time I’ve lived this day. Honestly, I’ve lost count,” Lance says, shrugging. “I can’t figure out how to make it stop or how to get the team’s help for anytime past one day’s worth, which leaves me stuck. It’s getting to me.”

“But— how?” Shiro blinks, struggling to grasp what Lance is telling him. “How did you get stuck in a time loop? And why aren’t the rest of us trapped in one with you?”

“I don’t know. You guys are never sure. When I can get the team to believe me,” he emphasizes. “And my experience is apparently different from the time Allura and Coran were trapped in one, so that doesn’t offer much help. I’m just… tired. It’s getting kind of lonely.” Lance gives a pained smile. “It could have been the quantum field we went through,” he throws out there, just spit-balling. “That’s the only thing I can think of.”

“The quantum field? You mean quantum entanglement could be at fault?” Shiro gapes at the prospect. “Potential proof of spooky action at a distance.” It takes only a moment for his marvel to quickly turn to horror. “We’d have no idea how to get you out of it if that’s the case. No way of getting enough measurements, let alone coming up with a solution within one day.” Grim-faced, Shiro waves the thought away. “No, let’s hope something else is the cause.”

Lance looks up at him, hopeful. And mostly glad to be so readily believed. It really has been getting lonelier the longer this goes on.

Shiro believes him. Lance is far too serious and… sad for it to be some kind of joke. But if they only ever have this one day, and Lance struggles to convince them each time, then the limit of time severely constrains their ability to do anything about it.

He attempts to troubleshoot it, scrambling for a solution in the hours they have left. “What about the original day? The first time the day occurred for you. Is there anything you can remember that may have only happened in that first day?”

Lance blinks, trying to think back. “Um… I don’t know.” He frowns.

“Walk me through it,” Shiro suggests. “Or at least, what you can remember of it.”

“That first day? Okay, I can try.” Lance stands taller, invigorated to possibly finally be getting somewhere. It’s worth a try.

Lance walks him through what he can remember. Literally. He takes Shiro through the castle, narrating as he goes.

The lights are dimmed - Hunk must have gotten the day and night settings installed after Lance usually turns in early - and everyone else seems to have gone to bed.

“Coran and Hunk were handling the space pirates,” Lance gestures to the bridge, which reminds him, “Slav called to remind us to pick him up, interrupting of course.” He pauses. “Hmm. Silver lining. I’m blessed with Slav-free days.”

“Wait! Slav called?” Shiro stops him. “Lance,” he says seriously, “I think you need to ask for Slav’s help.”

Lance groans. “Ah, really?”

Shiro shrugs, sympathetic. “He might actually be able to help you.”

Lance huffs, but is relieved to have a new strategy. He nods. “Yeah, it’s a good idea. I’ll do that.”

Shiro grins and bumps shoulders with him good-naturedly. “Go ahead and continue. We still need to try to figure out the cause.”

“Right! Onward,” Lance continues walking them through the ship. He starts to head to the dining area, “And then I— wait! No, I think then I helped Pidge clean up her workspace. You know, after the turbulence tossed stuff around?” Lance guides them back towards the engineering room.

Seeing the mess of Pidge’s desk, he recalls, “I picked up some things that had fallen.” He gestures widely and accidentally knocks a lamp-like doohickey, which slams into the items on Pidge’s workspace and sends them careening towards the floor.

Shiro jumps forward, but only manages to catch a few things. The rest crashes loudly.

“Oops. Ah, crap. I’m a bit clumsy.” Lance blushes. “Though, I guess this is actually more accurate. I think I accidentally knocked some of her stuff over that time too.” He leans down and starts picking the tech and miscellany up. And then he notices the now-broken pot holding Pidge’s attempt at recreating the Olkari-style merging of technology and plants, spilling out a little dirt through the cracks. “Oh, shoot.” Lance smiles nervously. “Well, we can just put it back.” He returns it to the tabletop, where it leaks a bit more of the loosened soil. “No biggie. It should be good as new tomorrow.” 

Shiro puts the tech cube and tools back where they came from and helps Lance put the rest back in as much order as possible. “Yeah, it’s fine,” Shiro says. “Okay.” He urges him, “And then what?”

“Well, then we went to dinner.”

They walk to the dining area.

Lance scrunches up his nose briefly in remembrance. “That first day, the food turned out awful. For the humans, at least. Hunk’s theory was that an ingredient had spoiled. He said the turbulence might have knocked some kind of power relay loose.” Lance shakes his head. “I tried warning Hunk about it earlier in the day. I even tried fixing it myself some days but none of that worked. So, now I just warn Hunk not to use that ingredient.” 

Shiro’s stomach lurches. “Ugh. Gross food deja vu.” He chuckles.

“Ha!” Lance guffaws. “Very funny,” he declares sarcastically. “Allura and Coran loved it, somehow. Us humans spent the rest of the night in the bathroom,” he emphasizes with disgust. He turns to Shiro. “So, I guess that ends the tour. What do you think? Any ideas on what trapped me in this day?”

Shiro sighs deeply. “No idea. Sorry, Lance. I don’t think it’s the quantum field, though. That would probably have affected all of us.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Lance frowns. Then yawns loudly. It’s late.

Concerned, Shiro points out, “You need sleep. Come on.”

They start walking back towards their quarters.

Shiro attempts to reassure him. “We may have run out of time today and you may be stuck a while longer,” he pauses to look at him and say with importance, “But we will get you out of this. Hang in there. Try getting Slav’s help. Talk with me again. I’ll try to be as helpful as I can.”

They reach the door to Lance’s room. “Don’t worry.” Lance grins tiredly. “You’re always helpful.” He puts a hand on Shiro’s shoulder, mimicking his supportive stance.

Shiro glances at his hand and snorts. He pulls Lance into a hug and holds him tightly. “You’re not alone. We may not be in a position to be as helpful as we could be, but you’ve got your team with you.” He pulls back. “Goodnight, Lance. See you today.” Shiro winks and leaves for his own room.

Flustered, Lance scoffs and watches him go before darting into his room and holding his flushed cheeks. Lance remarks, “He’s having too much fun with this.” See you today? Such a goof. Since when is Shiro such a goof? 

——

Take #39.

Morning comes, and with it comes the morning knock. Shiro’s knocking to beg for some toothpaste. The routine of it could be annoying, but it’s charming instead. And after the previous night’s events, he’s in a silly delighted mood. Eager to greet Shiro.

So, when the knocking happens upon his door, Lance cheerfully opens it right away and asks, “Here to borrow a cup of toothpaste?”

The open door reveals a more disheveled than usual Shiro, though.

“Lance!” He gasps. “I remember you giving me toothpaste but it wasn’t there! Lance,” he pleads. “What day is it?”

Shock pours through Lance. And then the realization. Shiro remembers, doesn’t he? “It’s… Groundhog Day.”

——

PART THREE

——

“Are you stuck in the loop too, now?” Lance asks, wide-eyed. Worried, he hesitates. “You do still believe me, right?”

Shiro gets a grip on his composure and reassures him, patient. “Yes, I believe you, Lance. And maybe we’re both in the time loop now. Or maybe all of us are. But hear me out—“

“Yeah?” Lance fidgets, caught between cautious hope and dawning horror.

“I remember last night. And you remember last night. Maybe the day finally stopped looping. Maybe it’s just the next day.” Shiro suggests, offering the most rational explanation.

“Maybe?” Lance considers it, growing excited. “Oh my god, it could finally be over! Yeah!” He shouts and hugs Shiro, who returns his tight embrace.

“Hey, guys. What’s with the hugging? Something good happen?” Hunk interrupts.

Lance pulls back to laugh, tension starting to dissipate from his muscles and eager for life to get back to normal, even if it is a ridiculous out-of-this-world type of normal. He snarks, “We’re just consoling each other in preparation for dealing with Slav today.”

“Nah, that’s not today,” Hunk corrects him. “We’re picking him up tomorrow, remember? Anyway, I was going to say— I don’t know how you guys keep with the schedule with no change in light or way to distinguish morning from night. On top of the relativity of time in space and all. I was thinking of fiddling with the lights - y’know, installing some kind of day and night settings. What do you guys think? Yeah?”

Lance and Shiro blink, dismayed.

“Picking him up tomorrow? Isn’t today tomorrow?” Lance goggles, feeling faint as his hope collapses in on itself.

“And what are you talking about - installing light settings?” Shiro asks, a sinking worry taking shape in his mind. “You did that yesterday afternoon, didn’t you?”

Lance sighs deeply and sits on the edge of his bed, knowing what’s coming and resigned to it.

Hunk is taken aback. “What? Um, no? Not yet.” He looks curiously at Shiro. “Did I already mention my idea to you?” His brows pinch together. “I could have sworn I just came up with the idea last night.”

Hunk looks at their oddly disheartened faces and tries to cheer them up. “Come on, guys! Today’s our last Slav-free day for a while. Make sure you head down to the lounge after breakfast. We’re having a game day,” he says decisively, “Pidge’s idea. And you guys could definitely use a break. I think all this space and mission stress is starting to get to you both.” Hunk throws them a look of concern. “See you there,” he urges, and pats the doorframe once before continuing on his way down the hall.

Lance shakes his head. Of course the time loop didn’t just suddenly stop on its own. That would be too easy.

He looks up at Shiro, grim at the reality of the situation. “The day has repeated. And you’re aware of it,” he states, which leads him to conclude sadly, “That means I’m not the only one stuck in the time loop now. We both are.”

Shiro takes a seat beside him, stunned. Struggling to grasp the reality of their situation. He mumbles, “Who knew Groundhog Day was a real thing that could happen to people?”

Lance pats him on the back. “I know, right?” Frustrated with helplessness, Lance wonders how he can console Shiro when they’re both trapped. “What could have caused this?” He starts hypothesizing. “What is determining who gets pulled into this repeating day and when?”

Shiro settles out of his shock, and picks up on Lance’s line of thought. “Right. We just have to think this through. Obviously, it’s affecting you and me but not the whole ship.” He echoes the quandary, “So, what could have caused this?” Then takes it further, “And how can we reverse it? Or make it stop?”

Lance has been over and over it. And he can’t make heads or tails of what’s going on. “I don’t know.”

Shiro turns to Lance, though. Eager, he insists,”We just have to troubleshoot it. Do some problem solving. What about the walkthrough of the original day’s events we did? We might have stumbled upon the cause without realizing it.”

Lance nods, considering, “Something we did in the walkthrough must have triggered you entering the loop.” And that being the case, he continues, “But what caused it?”

Shiro sighs. “You know what we’re going to have to do, right?”

And Lance goes wide-eyed with realization, but shakes his head in denial. “Don’t say it.”

“We’re going to have to ask Slav,” Shiro says, more serious about the idea than he wants to be.

Lance groans.

Shiro smiles in commiseration. “He could be helpful,” he asserts, chuckling, yet wanting it to be true.

After going through the day, as normally as possible - which is a surreal experience for Shiro - and confirming that they are the only ones aware of the loop, Lance grabs the opportunity to talk to Slav when he calls.

As soon as the call comes in, Lance sends it over to another console. That way he can talk with Slav without interrupting Hunk and Coran while they deal with the space pirates. He’s not getting involved with that again. Lance learned that lesson the hard way. A day where they all survive to the end of it is pretty good day. Even if it is one where he has to try to get answers from Slav.

“And that’s why we need your help. We have no idea what got us both stuck in this day. Any ideas?” Lance asks.

Slav clutches at his head and moans. “Oh, no! This is terrible! We’re in the .03% of realities where these events happen!” He whines in utter despair, “And in .001% of those, you both are trapped forever. And then I never get picked up! This is awful!” He flails, indignant, and begins trembling with fear at the prospect.

Lance raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Yes, how terrible for you,” he grumbles. “Now, how can we stop it?” He questions pointedly, through gritted teeth.

Slav gasps, and urgently addresses Lance with severe importance, “Never use the golden blanket.”

Lance blinks, dumbfounded by the ridiculousness of Slav’s advice.

“The realities where you are trapped forever are the only realities where you used a golden blanket. So, whatever you do, don’t use one!” He shouts. “It could get you trapped.”

Lance stares him down through the vid screen. “We are trapped,” Lance emphasizes. “Hopefully, not forever. We haven’t come across any… golden blankets.” His eye twitches with aggravation. “How do we get un-trapped?”

Slav glares at him. “It’s clearly something on the ship. Simply turn it off,” he says, as if Lance is the unreasonable one. “Avoid golden blankets. And remember to pick me up on time!” He reminds him loudly and ends the vid call.

Lance huffs in disbelief and annoyance.

Later, when he and Shiro are alone, he relates what Slav said.

“Can you believe it? That was his advice,” Lance complains, pacing with irritation. “Helpful, my ass,” he mutters.

Shiro exhales gustily, exasperated with confusion. “Golden blanket? Do you think he meant an actual blanket?”

“Who knows?” Lance grumbles. “I haven’t seen anything like that. Have you?”

“No. At least, I don’t think so.” Shiro frowns in thought, leaning to sit back against the pillows of his bed and smoothing a hand tiredly across his face.

Lance bites his lip, then sighs. “You don’t think he meant a solar sail, do you?”

Shiro’s eyes widen and he stares up at Lance, impressed. “A solar sail?” He considers it. “Perhaps. Though, I’ve never used one of those and I haven’t seen one onboard.”

Lance slumps to sit beside Shiro and leans back on his arms. “Whatever. The solution has nothing to do with a golden blanket. It’s something on the ship.”

“‘Simply turn it off,’ huh? Well, if it’s a device that turns on and off, we can find it and stop the loop. At least there’s that.” Shiro smiles reassuringly at Lance.

Bemused, Lance sighs. “Yeah.” He folds his arms behind his head and flops back across Shiro’s bed, swinging his legs where they dangle off the side. “Just a matter of time.”

Shiro runs through the walkthrough over and over in his head. Through the entire day. It could have been anything he touched that day. He taps an absent-minded rhythm out on his gunmetal grey arm, fidgets at the seam where it meets his flesh at the bicep under his sleeve. Finding this time loop tech and figuring out how to turn it off could take a while. “We could really use Pidge and Hunk’s help on this one. They have more experience with tech in general and especially with the tech on this ship. Coran, too. We could try talking with them,” he suggests idly.

Lance hums, thinking it over. “We could do that. Yeah,” he glances at Shiro, “Tomorrow, let’s ask them.” He purses his lips. “But, maybe we shouldn’t be too specific with them. On the off chance…”

Shiro nods. “Definitely. We don’t want to be responsible for getting someone trapped with us - possibly forever,” he agrees, serious. Then, he gazes at Lance and nudges his leg against Lance’s. “But, hey— I’m glad if I’m stuck forever that it’s with you.”

Lance meets his eyes, and asks softly, “Yeah?”

Shiro smiles warmly at him. “Yeah. You’re lighthearted. You’ve got a sense of humor. And you’re a good person, Lance. You’d get us through it.”

Lance blushes bright red, but starts to grin. “Me? What about your resiliency and resourcefulness? I’m pretty sure you’re the one getting us through this.”

“Alone? I’d probably go mad. You keep me focused. Give me purpose. A reason to… figure all this out, to make it to the other side.” Shiro reaches out to touch him, grateful. He squeezes Lance’s knee tenderly.

And something heated but nervous, a tentative yearning, unfurls inside Lance - pulsing against his insecurities. “I wouldn’t be this close to answers without you,” Lance counters. 

Shiro ducks his head and his cheeks go slightly pink. “We make a good team.”

\----

Take #40 for Lance. Take #3 for Shiro.

Another morning, another iteration of the day.

Except this time, he’s got Shiro with him. Lance breezes through getting ready faster than usual, already dressed by the time there’s a knock at his door.

He opens it and Shiro sheepishly smiles and gestures with his toothbrush. “Hi. It’s me.”

Lance smirks and whips his head towards his bathroom, gesturing for Shiro to go on in. “Go ahead and use mine. It’ll refill itself.” He grins.

“Thanks,” Shiro chuckles and helps himself to some toothpaste, quickly brushing his teeth right there at the sink.

Lance sits at the edge of his bed and watches him, silently appreciating the calm domesticity while he slips his shoes on and ties the laces.

Hunk knocks at the open door frame and briefly double-takes at Shiro’s presence. But he rolls with it. “Oh, hey guys— I got up before the alarm again. I don’t know how you guys—“

Lance interrupts his usual spiel, standing up and patting Hunk’s shoulder, “Yeah, buddy, we know. Go ahead and install your light settings. It’s a great idea. And we’ll meet you guys in the lounge for game day.” He nudges him to keep going down the hall despite Hunk’s stymied confusion. “No worries. We’ll be right there.” 

“…Okay. See you in a bit,” Hunk mutters and wanders away, slightly puzzled.

Lance shrugs at Shiro’s amused foamy grin.

They head to breakfast together, grabbing a light meal while they discuss how they plan to approach their resident tech experts with their questions.

“Well, telling them directly about being stuck in a time loop hasn’t been too much trouble for me. Usually, it just leads to a medical scan and them telling me to take a break.” Lance scrapes the remnants of food from his plate, enjoying a last bite.

“Yeah, we might as well just ask them directly.” Shiro rinses their dishes and shoves them into the castle’s version of a dishwashing machine. “I guess I’m just not used to having so many chances to get it right. It’s kinda nice.” He smirks.

When everyone settles in for game day in the lounge, Shiro gets the team’s attention, clearing his throat pointedly.

They look up, expecting leader talk or some kind of instructions.

“We have a bit of a problem,” he says. “Lance and I are caught up in a time loop.” They just look at him, confused.

Keith frowns. “Is this part of the game?”

Pidge looks dubiously at Shiro. “You know we’re not doing Monsters & Mana until later, right?”

Lance pitches in, “Guys, seriously. No games. We’re caught in a time loop.”

Shiro tries to clarify, “It’s not affecting the rest of you. But it is affecting us. And we think something on the ship is causing it.”

“Yeah,” Lance says, “We need your help finding the tech responsible so we can ‘turn it off,’ according to Slav.”

Coran twists the end of his mustache. “Hmm. Interesting.”

Pidge looks back and forth between Lance and Shiro. Indignant, she asks, “Slav? You went to Slav with this first?” She folds her arms and huffs. “You guys know anything he says should be taken with a grain of salt. And if there were a time loop, it would be affecting all of us, wouldn’t it?” She shakes her head, skeptical.

Hunk chimes in. “Guys, they were acting pretty odd earlier. This could be why.”

Coran peers intently at Lance and Shiro each. “It’s possible.” He squints. “But then, it’s also possible they’ve both endured a wallop to the head. Why, my great uncle suffered quite a fall onto my other great uncle and their heads thumped together so hard they shared the same delusion of birds following them for two quintants.”

Keith glances at Shiro, concerned. Hunk frowns at Lance in worry. 

Pidge nods. “Yeah, I think you two should get a med scan.”

Shiro sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. This isn’t getting them the answers they need.

Lance pats his back in support, all too used to this. Loudly he says to the others, “Yeah, you know you’re right. We did both get knocked on the head. We’ll get it checked out. No big.” He smiles. Then, to Shiro, he whispers, “Don’t worry. We’ll get the info somehow. Let them deal with the distraction incoming in three, two, one…”

**Beep! Beep! Beep!** The alarm blares and the emergency lights flash.

The others groan and they each start complaining on cue, while Allura enters the lounge and engages them further in conversation about the alarms.

Shiro addresses Lance quietly, “You’re right. How about we play along with the day and gather what intel we can discreetly? We can debrief tonight.”

Lance nods, liking that plan.

**Beep! Beep! Beep!**

“What?!” Pidge’s eyes go wide. “They’ve never been this close together before.”

And knowing what to expect, Shiro smiles at Lance, then takes his cue to shout, “Everybody, take cover!”

Lance and Shiro dive for cover while the rest do the same on instinct, their training kicking in.

The ship jerks beneath them, jarring and tossing them. A loud crash and the whine of colliding metal rings out.

——

Later, they meet up in Lance’s quarters, lounging on his bed while they plan their strategy for locating the time looping tech.

“Okay, we need to systematically go through the ship and find any tech that could distort time,” Shiro says. “We’ll have to be stealthy about it. I hate to say it, but the others are more likely to just give us straight answers to our questions if they think we’re asking hypothetically.”

Lance tosses a spherical Altean bread snack up into the air, catching it routinely while he thinks. “Sneaky’s similar to stealthy, right? I’m not sure I can do stealthy, but I could pull off sneaky.” 

“Yes, Lance. Sneaky is just as good.” Shiro laughs. “You’ll do fine.”

Lance sits up, making an effort to stay focused. “So, without giving them context, we’ll each slowly gather intel from the team on what the tech throughout the ship does or is capable of.” He smiles and takes a bite of his snack, glad to have a workable plan.

Shiro nods. “And each night we’ll touch base. Compare notes. For any tech we suspect, we can check in with Slav. See what he thinks before we try turning it off.”

“You’re only suggesting that because you’re not the one who has to deal with Slav,” Lance accuses him, playfully - his cheek bulging with his food like a chipmunk.

Rolling his eyes, Shiro grins. “Well, we can switch tasks some days. See how that works.” He’s perfectly willing to work with Slav if he can help them.

Lance gazes at Shiro sitting idly beside him with empty hands and can practically hear his mother now - scolding him for a lack of manners. He turns his snack so the section without a massive bite in it is more visible and holds it out, offering some to Shiro. “You want some? It’s pretty good.”

Shiro eyes the food, quirks the corner of his mouth in a warm half-smile, and accepts the snack. Takes his own bite of it and savors the taste before returning it. Once he’s swallowed, Shiro finds himself both grateful and a little melancholy. “You know—,” he pauses, “When the Galra had me. As their ‘Champion.’ They’d give me these snacks. Small cookie-shaped things. And I don’t know if it was… the hunger— or what— but it was some of the best damn food I’ve ever tasted. Maybe we’ll come across it again sometime. And I can test that out.” He sighs, pained with the traumatic memories that flash across the back of his mind.

Solemn, Lance considers the breadth of trauma that Shiro has faced. And tentatively, he asks him, “When you were trapped like that… How did you… stay sane?”

Shiro studies Lance, and places a hand on his shoulder in the hope of providing comfort. He contemplates the question, and tries to answer honestly, “There wasn’t much of a choice. It was either hang on as long as I could to survive, or lose my grip and my… life.” Shaking his head at his own grimness, he tries to turn it around towards something positive. “I focused on learning how to survive. Adapting to the new environment. New situations. …New limbs,” he flexes his metal hand and smirks, gallows humor creeping in. “I soaked up as much tactical fighting skill and knowledge as I could,” Shiro admits, even though a lot of the ways he learned those things still continues to haunt him.

Lance can sense Shiro’s darkening mood, and tries to lighten the somber atmosphere, remarking, “I know you’ve said to give myself a break, be willing to lean on the team, and try to be happy.”

Shiro looks at Lance in surprise, “I did?” He must have said it in one of the iterations only Lance remembers. And he can’t fathom the circumstances that led to him offering such advice, but he can’t help but feel a bit of pride that he did. “Hmm. Sounds like good advice.” 

“Yeah.” Lance smiles. “You know, you should be willing to take that advice yourself. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how that was a bit of the old-fashioned ‘Do as I say and not as I do.’”

Chastised, Shiro recognizes the validity of Lance’s advice and appreciates the sentiment, “Duly noted.” He huffs out a dry laugh.

And because Lance feels the significance of it, he goes on, emphasizing the importance of what he’s trying to say. Letting Shiro know that he’s here for him too. “You can lean on me,” Lance says. Desperately meaning it and wanting to convey it to Shiro. Because Shiro may be his hero, but he’s human and he has fears, anxieties, and insecurities like the rest of them. And if Lance needs to let go of a few of his own in order to realize that and try to be there for Shiro, then he can. And if he wants to be close with Shiro, maybe he just needs to be honest with him.

Lance uses Shiro’s hand on his shoulder to pull him closer and turn it around, putting his own arm around Shiro and hugging him tightly, bracing himself for what he is about to admit. “I should be sorry that I got you sucked into this mess. That you’re trapped with me in this day. Possibly forever. I should be sorry. But I’m not,” he confesses, anguished. “I’m so desperately glad to have you with me. I can’t help it. But I am sorry for not feeling as sorry as I should. I feel guilty, which I should.” Lance lifts his teary eyes to meet Shiro’s shocked gaze. “But I hope you forgive me anyway.”

“Lance. I do forgive you,” Shiro says in a voice hushed with awe. “Of course, I forgive you.” He holds Lance firmly in his arms and brings their heads together, closing his eyes and nuzzling his cheek into Lance’s soft hair. “I’m not sorry either,” he whispers. “I’m glad we’re not alone.”

——

Take #41 for Lance. Take #4 for Shiro.

Morning finds them brushing their teeth side by side. Grinning at each other in the mirror.

The rest of the day unfolds with them playing along with events while discreetly doing some intel-gathering on the tech onboard the ship. And Lance loves it. It feels like he’s playing at being spies with Shiro.

When they have a free moment, though, Lance takes Shiro aside to share a brilliant idea he’s come up. They can try asking their lions for help. Maybe they can sense the tech causing the disturbance and share that message with them. Unfortunately, their lions seem to have no idea and no answers. So, they end up spending an hour looking like a couple of goofs trying to mind-meld with bored and oblivious metal cats.

Oh, well. At least they tried. Lance marks it in the win column anyway for the pleased look Shiro gave him when he suggested it.

——

Take #42 for Lance. Take #5 for Shiro.

Most of the tech onboard is irrelevant - completely incapable of messing with time. Pidge is amused at the latest kick of hypothetical Lance’s mind is on, though. 

Shiro fares no better, eliminating several possibilities from the tech suspects, but suffering through some long-winded stories from Coran in order to do it.

Sadly, they both are so focused on their mission that they forget to warn Hunk away from the bad food. Dinner is inedible again.

One look at the meals Hunk is about to plate up for the team, and Lance stops short. Grabs Shiro by the arm. And subtly signals for him to follow along. “Oh, no, Hunk.” Lance pouts dramatically. “I forgot to say Shiro agreed to give me some extra training. And we had a big lunch, so… We’ll just be grabbing a light dinner to go. Hope you didn’t go all out.” He grabs Shiro and him a plate each and puts only the safely edible foods onto them.

“Oh, no problem, man. It’s fine.” Hunk waves it off, gracious as ever.

Shiro stealthy pockets some dessert and grabs a couple drinks for them.

Later, they eat guiltily in Shiro’s quarters, farther away from where the - thankfully muffled - chorus of vomiting will start to sound.

Shiro cringes before looking shamefaced across at Lance where he sits with legs folded across from him. “I feel so bad for them.”

Lance pats him on the shoulder. “It couldn’t be helped. We can’t catch it every day. And the mission comes first.” He smirks. “You taught me that.”

Shiro snorts, mood lifting. “A little cold,” he remarks. “I hope I taught you more than that. Like…”

Lance licks his lips and swallows the last bite of his meal. Patiently indulging Shiro’s surprise.

“—How to be stealthy,” Shiro finishes, pulling their dessert out of his pocket with a flourish. “Ta da!”

Lance grins at him - happy - and unwittingly charms Shiro with his sparkling blue eyes and his flushed pink cheeks.

——

Take #46 for Lance. Take #9 for Shiro.

Several quintants of sly investigative work later, and they have a couple possible tech culprits, but they’ve decided to cross-check each among Hunk, Pidge, and Coran before they bring it up with Slav.

On his way back to his quarters to debrief with Shiro, Lance spots Shiro talking closely with Keith and hitches once in his steps but carries on to his room to wait for him. It’s fine.

Not even a full dobosh later and Shiro is heading down the hall towards Lance, where he’s waiting casually - totally casually, he’s sure - and leaning against his open doorway. “Aw, no Keith?” He calls out. “We could have had a threesome,” he teases, trying to make light of it. Not jealous at all.

Shiro guffaws, but smirks. “And squash our dynamic duo? I’m a one-man kinda guy.” He winks and glides right past Lance into his room.

Lance sputters, not expecting Shiro to rejoinder his flirting with more flirting. He gulps. Wow. Butterflies kick off in his stomach and heat pulses through him at the thought. The tantalizing possibility. He follows him inside, letting his door glide shut.

They start talking shop and Lance forgets himself - caught up in it all to the point of his flustered awkwardness fading momentarily. He and Shiro stand excited, figuring they must be getting close to unsticking themselves from time with a couple of strong possibilities for the tech that could be to blame.

Lance paces, excited. “Do you know what this means? With a flip of a switch, everything could go back to normal soon. Our friends will remember it when we talk, again.” And then Lance realizes, “We’ll be able to see land again!” 

Shiro laughs. And Lance throws himself at him, enthusiastically embracing him in a joyful hug, and without thinking but for a silly vague notion of kissing the ground - he launches a kiss at Shiro’s cheek.

Only it doesn’t land on Shiro’s cheek. It lands on the corner of his mouth. 

And Shiro gasps, temporarily stunned. But he doesn’t pull away.

Lance pulls back, aghast and embarrassed.

Only to see Shiro staring at him with unexpected intensity - a hungry light in his eyes. Shiro dives with his mouth and captures Lance’s lips with his own. He kisses him, hard and deep. Pulls him in closer. Catches Lance’s tongue and starts sucking on it.

Lance trembles, swept up in the rush of endorphins and arousal. He moans and threads his fingers into Shiro’s hair, holding him in place while Lance eagerly reciprocates by delving up into his mouth. Their kiss becomes wetter and hotter, and when they pull back an inch to breath deep heaving breaths, a string of their shared saliva connects their mouths. Lance has never felt so filthy and aroused.

Shiro is so turned on he shivers. It’s like Lance lit a fire inside of Shiro and it’s demanding to be fed. He slides his big warm hands down Lance’s back, cups him by the ass and thighs, and lifts him into his arms. He carries him over to the bed and gently lowers them both down. Lance breathes in shuddering panted breaths, opening his legs. Shiro slots neatly between them, and returns to voraciously trying to take Lance apart through his kiss.

They shudder and grind together, making out hungrily atop Lance’s bed.

Lance begins to curl his legs up and around Shiro’s hips, causing him to hum deeply into his mouth and thrust his growing erection down into Lance’s matching hard on. Lance rubs his nose into Shiro’s cheek and inhales the scent of them. He clutches at Shiro’s back and arms, stroking over sculpted muscles. God, Shiro is so hot he could scream, and here he is running his hands all over him.

Shiro kneads the round pillowy cheeks of Lance’s ass and groans, biting gently at Lance’s bottom lip.

“Oh, god, yes,” Lance whines. “Do it. Fuck me. Please,” he pleads.

“Mmm, fuck. Lance.” Shiro frots their hard cocks once against each other through their clothes, then skims his hands under Lance’s shirt and raises it up and off of him.

And they’re both so hungry for it, they start tearing off their clothes and tossing them away until there’s nothing but skin against skin.

They tangle together, each leaking pre-cum onto the other’s bare skin. Moaning. Panting. 

Shiro dips two fingers between Lance’s cheeks and starts rubbing at his hole.

Lance shakes and writhes wildly, never having had anyone touch him so intimately before. “Fuck yes,” he cries out. He fumbles blindly at a bedside drawer and throws a tube at Shiro. “Functions like lube,” he says.

Quick to squeeze some on his fingers, Shiro begins stretching Lance open, plunging his digits in deep and hard before slipping in a third and briefly a fourth finger to loosen him up. He considers a condom, but their eyes meet - both realizing that it’s not necessary with such a highly thorough and advanced med pod having been used several times by them. It would have caught anything. Shiro smoothes some lube along his drooling cock and kneels over Lance, positioning himself at Lance’s slick hole. “Oh, fuck, yes,” he rumbles at the sight of Lance’s flesh flexing open hungrily.

Lance grabs at Shiro, bracing himself. And Shiro grips Lance tight by the hips, and slides into him slowly - allowing Lance time to accommodate the large length and girth of him - until he’s balls-deep and Lance is propped up on his thick thighs.

“Ohhhh!” Lance shudders and wiggles, pushing himself firmly onto Shiro’s dick. He arches his back and thrashes, attempting to work Shiro in deeper.

“Lance,” Shiro shouts, stilling his sweaty hips. He pulls slowly back, savoring the gripping wet heat of Lance, before plunging sharply back in. Lance yelps before releasing a long, low sound of pleasure. Shiro grabs a firm hold of him and begins a steady thrusting rhythm. 

“Harder,” Lance cries. And when Shiro picks up speed, slamming into him again and again, Lance wails. He revels in the feel of Shiro’s heavy balls smacking into his ass and the hot sliding friction that penetrates deep into him. And that’s more than thrilling enough to bring Lance to the sexual edge, but then Shiro leans closer into him, rubbing Lance’s bouncing cock between them, and sucks at the sweat pooling in the curve where his neck meets his collarbone.

Lance whimpers, spasming and blowing his load onto their chests and milking hard at Shiro’s cock. “Yes. Shiro!”

Shiro shouts, writhing into him and pulsing his own come deep into him in several grinding thrusts - like he’s trying to wring out the last drop. “Ah. Mmm,” he moans, running his hands over Lance’s body in satisfaction.

He rolls and turns them onto their sides, massaging at Lance while they catch their breaths.

Lance brings a hand down to feel at where they’re still connected, Shiro’s cock not having slipped out of him yet, and is gratified when it causes Shiro to twitch deep inside of him. He looks into Shiro’s heavy smiling gaze and grins. “We’re doing that again.” 

And they go for another round before falling into happily sated sleep together.

——

Take #47-49 for Lance. Take #10-12 for Shiro. 

It only takes a handful of seconds upon waking for the knock to come upon Lance’s door. He opens the door immediately to Shiro who sweeps him up in his arms, pauses to lock Lance’s door, and returns them to bed where they spend the rest of the day having loud enthusiastic sex.

They decide to take a few days to explore each other’s bodies and get to know each other better before returning to their mission. “When will we have another chance to have no-consequence ditch days for sex?” Lance whispers. 

——

Take #50 for Lance. Take #13 for Shiro.

They try to focus back on the mission at hand, playing along with the day - only getting distracted a few times to makeout - until the opportunity arises and asking Slav about the tech they suspect could be at fault.

After managing to squeeze in a bout of panic and stern admonishment, he blithely waves off the tech Lance describes as not even remotely responsible. Followed by a babble of statistics and multiverse math that has Lance rolling his eyes.

“‘Keep looking,’ he said.” Lance sighs and sets down one of Hunk’s engineering tools he’s been fidgeting with. “And then he squinted at me and I swear he knew what we’ve been up to! Because he said he’d ‘never understand our bizarre human mating rituals,’” Lance laughs and waggles his eyebrows at Shiro.

Shiro looks up from the tech scattered throughout Pidge and Hunk’s workshop. The only other tech he can think of that they haven’t already checked out. He glances at Lance and smirks, gesturing with his own collar. “Could be the hickey.” 

Lance blushes, feeling at his neck, before shaking his head. “No, it would’ve been covered then. I was still suited up.” He picks up a Rubik’s-looking cube gadget from Pidge’s desk and tosses it back and forth between his hands. “Any idea where to start?”

Shiro shrugs, “That corner, maybe?” He catches the Olkarian cube of tech Lance is playing with from midair and brings Lance’s attention to where he’s pointing. He sets the cube down. “If we work in a grid pattern, we’re less likely to miss something.”

Lance nods, smiling up at him. His gaze loving. 

And Shiro can’t help himself, returning a knowing and equally loving smile. 

——

…The chimes ring out in a pleasantly harmless melody and an automated voice - calm, feminine, and professional - informs Lance it’s time to wake and start the day. He folds back his blankets, a drool stain dry and crusty at the corner of his mouth. Lance groggily turns to sit up and get out of bed…

But he’s confronted with an arm draped lazily over him. An arm that’s not his.

Lance gasps. Wide-eyed, he realizes he’s not wearing his routine pajamas; he’s still naked under the covers. And Shiro has not been returned to his own bed by the loop as he usually is.

Shiro is cuddled up against him, face slack with sleep. He grunts softly and tugs against Lance’s movement, pulling him back against him.

Lance grabs ahold of Shiro and jostles him awake. “Wake up! You’re still here. Shiro, wake up!”

“Hmm?” Shiro blinks blearily awake. “What?” he asks, confused. But then he notices the daylight setting of the lights. And the numbers on Lance’s room clock. “Is it…?” He sits up, a warm suspicion settling in him. 

“Maybe?” Lance whispers, hopeful.

“Let’s go see,” Shiro grins.

They get up, get dressed, and clean themselves up before heading out to check.

They find everyone else at breakfast.

“Well, well. If it isn’t the lovebirds—” Pidge smirks. “Up and about. I hope you enjoyed yourselves, because we’ll be picking up Slav in about one varga.”

“Dude!” Hunk raises his brows at Lance. “When were you going to tell me? I’m your best friend and I had to find out by catching a glimpse of you two making out?”

Holy shit, Lance thinks. It’s finally the next day. The time loop has ended. He shares a look of relieved awe with Shiro. Then turns to Hunk with a blush and proudly says, “It’s recent.”

——

**On Olkarion. Exactly 34 quintants before the time distortion.**

Pidge says goodbye to the Olkari leaders, the last to board for the lion’s return trip to the castle.

A small child runs up before she can go and holds out a cube, smiling.

“For me?” She asks and accepts it graciously. “Thank you.” Tilting it to see all of the sides, Pidge admires its resemblance to the Rubik’s Cubes of home.

Ryner, one of the Olkari leaders, chuckles and affectionately tucks the child against her side. “I believe he’s trying to thank you,” she says. “It’s a children’s toy - though, often used by parents to hold their children in a kind of time out,” she says, quirking her mouth in amusement. “And now it is a gift of gratitude. A safe journey to you, Paladin.”

Pidge smiles at Ryner and the child. “Thank you. I hope we see you again sometime,” and with a wave, she’s off to join her team and rest after another hard-won battle.

-End-

Save

**Author's Note:**

> * _Time After Time_ is also a reference to the [Cyndi Lauper song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb3Sx1Z-7rk).  
* Groundhog Day is in reference to the classic 1993 movie.
> 
> Once again, please take the time to CHECK OUT [griffonskies’ Art Masterpost](https://griffonskies.tumblr.com/post/186844838986/time-after-time) for this fic and send her some love.
> 
> Thank you for reading. Let me know if you enjoyed it! You can also find me on tumblr at [ificanlivethruthis](https://ificanlivethruthis.tumblr.com) and on twitter [@Wendy_Pi_Slice](https://twitter.com/Wendy_Pi_Slice).


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